Can Mubadala Rejuvenate Brazil’s Invepar?

Brazil, Latin America’s biggest economy, is facing its toughest recession in decades amid a earth-shattering political crisis that linked government officials with state-owned companies.

Making matters worse for the Brazilian economy is that borrowing costs had surged, while deal execution risk has increased. In February, state-controlled oil giant Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) had its sale of its US$ 5.2 billion transaction of a natural gas distribution unit, Nova Transportadora do Sudeste S.A., stopped by a Brazilian judge. The buyers of Nova Transportadora do Sudeste S.A. are Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP, a unit of Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management Inc., China Investment Corporation (CIC) and Singapore’s GIC Private Limited. The judge announced the deal wasn’t sufficiently publicized to stimulate competition – this a major setback for Petrobras.

Korea’s NPS Invests In Crypto Exchanges Amid Crackdown

South Korean news outlets have reported that South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) has unwittingly invested roughly US$ 2.4 million in four local cryptocurrency exchanges – Korbit, Upbit, Coinplug, and Bithumb – even as regulatory officials move to subdue the unbridled enthusiasm for crypto trading that has flourished in the tiny country. The US$ 550 billion pension scheme invested in the cryptocurrency exchanges indirectly through two venture capital funds handled by external managers with exclusive rights over asset allocation, according to an NPS officer.

Crypto trading has proved wildly popular in South Korea, drawing an estimated one million citizens to the largely unregulated exchanges that have cropped up over the past few years. South Korea, which is ranked first in the world in terms of internet sped, is the largest market for cryptocurrency transactions behind Japan and United States, and accounts for 29.8% of trade globally, according to a report released by the Korea Insurance Research Institute (KIRI) in December 2017.

Ripple Attempts to go the Central Bank Route

San Francisco-based Ripple, a tech company that professes the use of blockchain to reboot the payment systems globally, landed a big deal with the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA). Ripple started a pilot program that will be spearheaded by SAMA and a few Saudi banks to deploy xCurrent for cross-border payments. [Content protected for Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute Standard subscribers only.Please subscribe to view content. ]